I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark
I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark
Original Text
The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991): 271. PR 4803 H44A6 1991 Robarts Library
1I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day ,
2 What hours, O what black hours we have spent
3 This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
4And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
5With witness I speak this. But where I say
6 Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
7 Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
8To dearest him that lives alas! away.
9I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
10Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
11 Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
12Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
13 The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
14As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
Publication Start Year
1918
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1996-2000.
Rhyme
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